Chapter 26
Brenna and Quinn didn’t need a Jet Ski to feel like they were living on the edge. The ups and downs of the summer, the deal-or-no-deal drama of their friend group, had shocked them plenty already.
When the marina saleswoman told Georgie that there weren’t enough Jet Skis available for the whole of their group, Brenna and Quinn opted out within seconds. They’d had their eyes on the tennis racquet rentals from the moment they’d walked into the shop.
Brenna and Quinn had been second-string doubles partners on the East Meadow tennis team from eighth until tenth grade, when they’d both been cut from varsity. They’d still played after school, in the bubble at Club Fit, or over long weekends and breaks between semesters when they were home from college. It was harder to find court time in the city unless you woke up at four a.m. to try your luck for a Central Park court, which neither Brenna nor Quinn had any interest in doing.
Now they’d happily settled into the rhythm of a rally. The Ocean Beach court looked right onto the bay. Salt air filled their noses as they alternated serves. Their thoughts moved easier to the sound of a tennis ball flying over a net. They always had.
Brenna and Quinn had been best friends ever since their moms signed them up for the same baby music class when they were just eight months old. Quinn was an only child, and Brenna was the youngest of six, all older brothers. They found each other before their brains were even fully formed, but even then, they had clung hard to each other.
There was no denying they were different from each other. And their differences only grew with age. By middle school, Quinn was sarcastic and dry, often wearing exclusively black clothes. Her long dark hair was always in two braids down her back like Wednesday Addams. Meanwhile, Brenna’s brunette hair never grew past her shoulders, dancing at the collar of her signature denim jacket decorated with a smiley-face patch on the back. Its wide grin couldn’t compete with Brenna’s own.
Yet Brenna and Quinn were inseparable because of everything they had in common. They unabashedly loved Broadway shows and musicals but were terrified of clowns and circuses. The only exception ever made was for The Greatest Showman, though it was no secret why. Two words: Hugh Jackman. They loved spicy foods and baked goods and going thrifting for antique furniture they could never afford. They’d always create fictional stories about who had owned them and discarded them and why, before moving on to explore and inspect the next armoire or old tufted couch.
Above all else, though, Brenna and Quinn were inseparable because they both loved friendship. More than anything. It was simple: they got a kick out of each other. And they got a kick out of their friends.
Nothing had been better than their East Meadow group.
For most of the summer, for the high points at least, there was nothing better than their friends, together right now, at age twenty-five. Sweet, sweet twenty-five.
Some people cried when they turned twenty-one, or when they graduated college and entered the real world. Quinn and Brenna? They loved their midtwenties. They were energized by this singular time of life. Finally, they had disposable incomes and autonomy. They had the streets of New York City, the TKTS booth, twenty-four-hour karaoke, and Levain cookies. They had all their friends back in the same neighborhood, living along Second Avenue. They were together again, but older, better. It was perfect.
The youngest of Brenna’s brothers was five years older than her, so she’d seen countless times firsthand how this age—this twenty-five-year-old magic—didn’t last. Twenty-five and twenty-six were the beginning of a turning point, a tip toward a change that Brenna and Quinn weren’t yet ready for. The second phase of adulthood, when everything went from loud and wild to quiet and contained.
Marriage, kids. They might be far-off plans right now, but Brenna and Quinn knew they’d be there in a blink. It would be a cycle that began, a wheel that would get going and wouldn’t pause again until they were in their thirties. By the time it stopped, by the time they got off the carousel ride and looked around at each other, so much would have changed.
Liz and Cam were already engaged. They’d probably be married by next summer. How much longer would they still squeeze into vacation rentals with eight high school friends? How much longer would someone be willing to crash in a bunk bed or pass out on a couch before backs started hurting or boyfriends and girlfriends and partners were added to the equation and twin beds just wouldn’t cut it?
How much longer until all their calendars started to fill with weddings and showers, bachelorette weekends and plans? How much longer could they all find three weekends in one summer alone to commit to nothing but friendship? No work—well, except maybe for Georgie—no parents, no weddings. Just each other.
Brenna watched her brothers’ friend groups dwindle as they each paired off, got married, and settled down. Mortgages and business trips. New jobs in new cities. New priorities, new plans.
She watched as the big group trips, the friend group trips, went the way of the dinosaurs.
Still, Brenna wasn’t afraid of that, no matter how existentially dread-prone her spiral became. She knew it was a part of life. She recognized and respected the rules of growing up.
It just made her even more determined to make the most of what she had now.
Twenty-five and free. The buzz of it all. Her friends together. A summer, all here. She’d always do whatever she could to make them happy. Even if sometimes that meant meddling when they didn’t know they needed a little Brenna-and-Quinn push.
They were her best friends for a reason.
“Quinn?” Brenna said, as she hit the ball across the court.
“Yes?” Quinn said, returning the rally.
“Can you hear me?”
Bounce.
“Yes?”
Bounce.
“I love this summer.”
Volley.
“Me, too.”
Return volley.
“I love being twenty-five.”
Bounce.
“Me too. It’s the best.”
Slam. Point, Brenna; 40–15.
“Okay so I’ve been thinking,” Brenna said, tossing the ball in her hand for a quick break. “We have to end this summer right.”
Quinn took a sip of water. “I’m listening.”
“I think I have a plan.”
Quinn tracked the gaze of Brenna’s eyeline over to the street, where she’d caught a glimpse of a figure walking by. She’d recognize those shoulders anywhere.
“I love a good plan.”